Monday, May 26, 2008

School Group - Minutes of 23 May 2008

23rd May 2008, University Canteen

Attendees: Mini Srinivasan, Lalita Agashe, Asim (Sakal Times), Sanskriti Menon, Avinash Madhale, Ranjit Gadgil, Mrs Waley, Anjali Bapat, Maitreyi Shankar (KKPKP)

1. Pilot infrastructure survey has been done in 12 schools (Doorstep School 3; CEE 3; Swadhar 3; Asha Kiran 2, ISC has not returned survey forms). Mini will get feedback from surveyors about changes to be made to forms. Janwani to computerize the data. Overall infrastructure seems ok. Schools reporting that maintenance requests seem to be getting better response. We still plan to conduct a more comprehensive survey when new school year begins. We may ask schools to do the survey, with our formats. Need to grade schools as A, B or C and ensure that 6 months later schools are improving.

2. Possibility of PMC setting up an Education Helpline discussed. This will allow parents/others to call a centralized helpdesk to register complaints/issues. Meher has already suggested the setting up of a website for schools. Ranjit will take this up with the PMC CIO, Anupam Saraph.

3. Learning Level Tests – these were the issues raised
a. Why have our own tests when schools are already testing?
b. What is the motivation for this? Do we not already know, as reported even by SSA, that children are not doing well in schools?
c. If we are saying that their testing is not good, on what basis are we saying that? If so, should we try and improve their testing rather than devise our own tests?
d. If children are already overtested and if we do not trust the teachers to conduct the tests fairly in the schools then how to administer the tests?
e. If we administer the tests externally how can we make the test results “official”?
f. How do we get children externally? If we use the NGOs that run study classes for our sample, will this not be biased?
g. Which standards and how many students will need to be tested? How long to administer the tests? What resources will be required?
We will meet with John Kurrien to discuss these issues.

4. There was discussion once more on the role of the school group. The name “Municipal School Watch” was thought to be appropriate. It emphasises the monitoring nature of the group. It was decided that we should, as far as possible, not get involved in the “reasons for the failure of the Municipal School system” and focus on demanding better education in the schools and improvement in the school environment. We will focus on creating more awareness in the public, creating pressure groups (like parents of children attending Municipal Schools through organizations like KKPKP), media attentions and lobbying with State and Central Govt. authorities. The thrust will be to demand that Municipal Schools, given the ample resources that are available, should be as good as and even better than private schools. How to achieve this, how to fix the million internal problems should be left to the administration. IF the school system requests help in certain matters or areas, then the MSW could provide assistance.

5. Some specific issues like issuing of books and uniforms and no. of teachers in schools and absentism should be looked at. Issue of corporal punishment in schools, cited as the no. 1 reason for dropout should also be highlighted by collaborating with organizations like Abhay (Bina Joshi).

6. PMC has already done a gradation of the schools and assigned grades to them. This data and the methodology and data used to assign grades to be obtained from PMC.

7. We should meet Commissioner, EO and Chairman of SB in a joint meeting to discuss the following issues
a. Emphasise that Municipal Schools should be excellent – School Dept. should possibly adopt an appropriate Mission, Vision and define Objectives.
b. Ask for results of the MLL tests
c. Infrastructure survey done and request new survey using our format for the new year
d. Raise issue of out-of-school children

Comments from Meher Gadekar
Thanks Ranjit for the minutes. You seem to have had a good meeting. A few remarks/observations: If we need support for lobbying/advocacy we may like to involve NCAS – National Centre for Advocacy Studies, who are specialists at lobbying and advocacy. I can put the School Group/MSW in touch with Amitabh Behar, who heads NCAS.

There is no need to lobby at the National level to improve education in PMC schools. We need to concentrate at the city level for this.

It might be a good idea to bring out, as a result of our work, a Citizen’s Report on the State of Edn in PMC schools. We can use the occasion to publish or broadcast the report, to create a noise about this issue, raise awareness and seek involvement of more citizens.

Certain things like contacting Bina Joshi and School Board of PCMC have been on our pending list for quite a long time now.

Look forward to attend the next meeting Cheers Meher